Woman Up How We Fight Against Gender Inequity

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

hello

for as long as i can remember i’ve had

to stand up for myself as a female

athlete

in lower school kids made fun of me for

playing sports at recess

oh there we go there was a line of

unsaid gender

expectations that split the playground

in half one side with girls on the

swings

and the other side with boys tackling

each other to the ground with a ball in

hand

now maybe i was just naive or maybe i

didn’t care

but every day when it came time for

recess i’d pick up my ball and march

right over that line on my way to a

court full of boys throughout the

tragically awkward years of middle

school

i remained confident in my athletic

abilities in seventh grade i finally

accepted that these six years of club

soccer under my belt

we’re not gonna let my thighs look like

the other girls instead my muscular legs

are what allowed me to

kick like a boy now i’ve lost track of

how many times people have

said that to me before why am i trying

to imitate a boy

better yet why should i idealize someone

you admit is my equal

and while i don’t think the coaches and

the parents who said those words to me

meant them in this malicious and sexist

way that phrase is

undeniably rooted in sexist

i don’t kick like a boy i kick like

sarah fuller

kick like abby womback alex morgan

i kick like megan hardesty

in high school i decided to use my

confidence to speak up where others

wouldn’t

and while pace has never done anything

intentionally sexist or purposely given

the boys teams

more opportunities than the girls teams

minor discrepancies between the girls

and the boys programs give off the

impression that the girls teams are less

important

one example of a small inequity was my

sophomore year

the boys basketball team practiced an

inman four days out of the week

and inman’s our main gym if you didn’t

know and the girls only got to practice

one day of the week

i and other girls on team feeling

frustrated with the lack of

consideration for our gym time

stood up and asked our coach if he could

work out a better practice schedule with

the boys coach

thankfully this year after the two

coaches had a conversation they evened

out the practice schedule

another example is before every home

game the boys basketball team takes up

half of our warm-up court even though

it’s an hour and a half before their

game

the only way for us to get them off the

court is to run across the court and

physically kick them off which

we do every game a more recent example

is our soccer game was not recorded but

the boys was

now the reason for this remains unclear

but the more important thing is that i

know the girls on the team stood up to

our coach and asked him to help us

ensure that this never happens again

and while gym time or unrecorded games

may come across as minor and unimportant

issues

they add up now in my experience in

today’s culture it’s

hard to find blatant and obvious gender

discrimination however women are

constantly and continuously working to

overcome the long-lasting effects of

sexism

and stereotypes a perfect example is

what’s happening with the ncaa

tournament right now

the girl’s only given a dumbbell rack

while the boys have an entire room

equipped with squat racks

and cardio equipment the best way for

me and for all of you to eliminate small

areas of gender and equity

is to confidently attack individual

issues such as

dumbbell racks unrecorded game film gym

time

now confronting individual issues with

requests and reasons for change

eliminates the possibility for us to be

ignored or for just to be handed a list

of excuses as to

why things were just the way they always

were now you may be seeing there

as a guy being like this doesn’t affect

me i don’t really know what i can do to

help or maybe you don’t even play sports

so you’re

you just don’t feel like it’s something

that you can help wrong

i’ll give you another example this week

i went up to my male soccer coach and i

said

hey declan sup you know i just want to

let you know i am going to be giving a

ted talk this weekend

about sexism within female athletics and

instead of being like oh megan that’s

not a thing that doesn’t happen you’re

presented so many opportunities by the

school which i am

he said what time is it i want to be

there to support you

he goes i’ve noticed it everyone else

has noticed it use your platform to

speak up

and stand up for yourself we need more

people like him

now to be completely honest i was

terrified to give this speech

and not just because i’m petrified of

public speaking as evident by my very

shaking hands right now

i was afraid that i was going to sound

like i was complaining ungrateful

rambling about issues that don’t really

matter i felt like i was sort of

cheating on this line of what i could

say

and what i couldn’t so to validate my

feelings

i talked to my teammates every single

person i spoke with whether on the

basketball team

the volleyball team the soccer team had

the similar feeling that their

respective sport received less attention

and fewer opportunities than the boys

teams did

those conversations gave me the

confidence to stand up here today

and challenge the status quo

unlike megan i was never really into

sports however

i was a theater kid for nine years of my

life as i grew up less and less boys

accompanied me

on my middle and elementary school

stages whether that be for

personal interest or american society’s

toxic standard of masculinity

i ended up in a female dominated

environment

but as years passed i realized my heart

wasn’t on the stage

but behind the camera i carried my

passion for film with me to a new school

ace academy here i was able to turn my

dreams into action

at pace i started the video program for

our school newspaper the nightly news in

which i create

videos about school events the student

body or even the newspaper staff

as a woman passionate about a male

dominated field

there are more eyes on you but there are

also more pressure

pressures on you to prove them wrong

about their misconceptions

as i reflected on my past years at pace

i wondered why i felt so

different in the pace film community was

it really because i was doing something

so unique then i realized

that all my film mentors and peers were

men

i felt like a pioneer not because i was

doing something completely different but

because i was one of the only girls to

do it

pace wasn’t the only place i found

myself to be alone as a girl in film

the summer after my freshman year i

interned with a major commercial film

company

and i loved every aspect of it but as a

strong

extrovert i wondered why i felt so

uncomfortable in the studio

then i realized i was literally the only

girl there

while i learned so much i was craving

something more from the film industry

and it wasn’t just for my passion for

film it was from my passion for female

empowerment

i want to personally see more successful

women in the industry

having someone that looks like you can

make a world of a difference

a female mentor would be able to aid me

in ways that i don’t have now

knowing women in the industry would

inspire me even further to do what i

love

even as the minority

i want other girls at pace to know who i

am so they can feel confident

enough to cross into a male-dominated

field and thrive

by helping younger girls in newspaper

learn how to create videos i feel like

the woman mentor i aspire to have

i want to inspire the next generation of

girls to have the confidence

that they need in everything they

attempt even if they feel alone

building confidence in young girls is a

difficult but essential task as women

are often belittled when they do

something they love whether it be

politics

music or film it gives people confidence

to know that they can achieve their

dreams regardless of their gender

throughout my film journey i never had a

mentor that looked like me but i didn’t

let that stop me because i knew if i did

other girls would be discouraged as well

i want to create a more equal

environment for the next generation of

female filmmakers an environment full of

female role models

in the next few years i will find myself

at a new school meeting new people who

don’t know me at all

i’ll make new friends interests and

hobbies but

i will continue to have the strength and

confidence i learned from my film

journey

simply by pursuing my passions whether

it be in leadership or art

regardless of what i look like i am

putting down sex adversities

i will not fall victim to the false

misconceptions or demeaning comments

about women

nor will i fall victim to the status quo

i will fight for my beliefs and follow

my dreams even if i am alone

as we face sexism within the status quo

we hope that you will join with us and

women up

[Applause]

i’m helen smith my name is christine

jacobson carter

shelby hill israel batista dala wideman

kate romero kate leach

nina i’m amalia have and i’m megan

hardesty

i always wanted to be some sort of

writer um whether it was literature

or journalism and so i ended up pursuing

a major in journalism in college

and worked for that in a year before

transitioning and going back to grad

school to get my master’s in education

i thought that i wanted to be a nurse

that i thought i wanted to be an

astronaut

and then i wanted to be a history

teacher

i loved the freedom that i had and

writing

in working in journalism but i found

that

i was doing something that i would be

doing every day for

the rest of my life and there wasn’t

really a sense of growth and change

and one of my favorite parts of my job

was the mentorship that i had with

my interns and so i ended up kind of

always having in the back of my mind the

idea of being an english teacher and so

i ended up going back to grad school to

get my degree

and now i’m here the first step to being

a confident woman is having goals for

yourself

and once you have those goals sticking

to them no matter what people have told

you what society has told you or if you

don’t get accepted into the specific

programs you wanted or the college you

wanted

and i think that american society along

with a lot of

other societies across the world have

always told women

to prioritize getting married being in

relationships and

being a mom and it’s really empowering

to see women who

want to have a career and want to grow

their career and

get their goals done do that and if a

woman chooses to have a professional

career and a family it just shows how

resilient and determined she is

that she can do both at the same time

i want to work in foreign service and i

would love to eventually one day be the

us ambassador to france

i want to be a computer scientist when i

grow up i

either want to be a marine biologist or

an exotic veterinarian

i want to go into academia so i want to

be

an english literature professor and like

researcher

i want to be a soccer player

[Music]

i think when i think of a boss i don’t

think of one person in particular

i think of more of a set of skills that

can be applied to any person

especially the ability to command a room

and demand respect

a boss is someone who provides structure

and

encouragement and parameters someone who

creates an environment

of cooperation and helpfulness

support my idea of a boss is someone

who like commands a room a boss is a

leader

in my opinion so outside of pace i

also own a business and we have three

yoga studio locations in atlanta

i have over 60 employees and so a lot of

times people call me the boss which

still sounds weird

so i guess my perspective is who i am as

a boss which is a leader and that

a leader needs to be the person that

everybody on their team can look to

but they also are willing to do

everything that

the people on your team do

like all the first ones are basically

boys and if i scroll down

basically the last ones are women it

makes me feel kind of

sad because women can be bosses too

it kind of disturbs me that a lot of

bosses are boys

and guys women can also be

awesome too being in education

it’s such a female-dominated field that

i never felt that um

i’ve worked at three different schools

in my career and never once have i felt

discriminated based on my gender but

since entering the business world

um i’ve encountered it a lot so i have

two male business partners

and there have been multiple times where

i’ve walked into a meeting room with a

prospective lawyer

or maybe somebody who’s going to help us

find our next real estate property

and they always look straight to the guy

shake their hands introduce themselves

and a lot of times i’m just ignored

and it’s not malicious or anything i

think they just assume that

i’m not important i don’t know how

things are for young women today but

that’s absolutely part of being

in companies in the academy and in

schools

like if you’re thinking about many

independent schools and i’m not talking

about pace specifically i’ve worked at

four or five

um most of the administration it’s men

most of the workers are women

so i think about that a lot um i also

think about

um the fact that i was passed over

routinely for promotions

when people who had worked at my company

i used to work in marketing for example

i’ve been there significantly less time

especially if they were male

when we deal with difficult situations

that i’m accused of

letting my emotions get the best of me

and

you know being challenged to be more

like my male partners or male employees

who

aren’t emotional when making decisions

um

even though i’ve seen them be equally

emotional

even subconsciously i dress a different

way at modio and conferences just

because i think

it makes it easier to get some of the

guys who we would call

quote unquote gravel hunters get in with

that crowd even if it means that you’re

the ones

just writing and you’re not the one

speaking in a room

once at a conference i wrote an entire

document

and handed it to someone that i was

working with because he said that he

wanted to add something to it

and he changed the title of it to fit

his own country that he was representing

and essentially presented it as his own

work

i’ve had times when somebody would be

like

why are you in this group you’re

supposed to be with the girls and i’d be

like well i can be in whatever group

he was mainly trying to be like well you

should be over there because you’re a

girl

and it’s easier and you can’t do these

hard things and

i tried to prove that i can do whatever

he can do

and better gender discrimination do you

mean

being told openly because i was a single

woman

i didn’t need to get paid as much for

doing the same work as a man was doing

because he had a family

do you mean being told that i really

shouldn’t have this office because a man

might need this

particular honor on his resume and i

wouldn’t need it

and i’m very thankful to pace that they

were really good about

nurturing female leadership

well i think tryhard seems to have kind

of a negative connotation

negative connotation negative

connotations it’s just saying that

someone works really hard

so i don’t think tryout is really an

insult it’s just

a compliment saying that you work really

hard

to do whatever you can do as hard as you

can without

trying to prove it to somebody else

you